John Estacio

JUNO nominated composer John Estacio served as Composer in Residence for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, and the Calgary Opera. He is the recipient of the prestigious NAC Award for Composers and several SOCAN Concert Music Awards. His symphonic, operatic and choral works have been performed by major Canadian and international orchestras, operas and choirs, including performances at Carnegie Hall by both the Toronto and Edmonton Symphonies.

Estacio’s operatic work includes Filumena for Calgary Opera/Banff Centre, Lillian Alling for the Vancouver Opera/Banff Centre, and Ours for Opera on the Avalon in Newfoundland. Works for ballet include the full-length score for The Cincinnati Ballet’s King Arthur’s Camelot and several compositions in The Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Wonderland. This year, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) will tour Canada with I Lost My Talk, inspired by Rita Joe’s poem, commissioned for the Right Honourable Joe Clark’s 75th birthday. And this year, 20 Canadian orchestras will perform his Trumpet Concerto.

Estacio was born in Newmarket, Ontario and raised in the farming community of the Holland Marsh. He studied piano and accordion as a child and played the church organ every Sunday, and as a teen created soundtracks for short student films, played trumpet and performed in high school productions of Broadway musicals. He majored in composition at Wilfrid Laurier University, studying with Glenn Buhr and Peter Hatch and earned his post-graduate degree at the University of British Columbia where he studied composition with Stephen Chatman. He came to Alberta in 1992.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal 2022
Member of the Order of Canada 2023